Join thousands of your peers from all over the world for the next Cisco Live Virtual simulcast, featuring the keynote address from Cisco Live 2011 in Acapulco, Mexico, on Monday, 7 November, at 6 pm CT / 4 pm PT.

Cisco Live Virtual brings you the best of Cisco Live events held worldwide throughout the year. Now you can experience the energy and excitement of the Acapulco event without ever leaving your desk.

Highlights include:

The live keynote address by David W Hsieh, Vice President, Solutions Marketing Emerging Technologies and TelePresence at Cisco.

Remember, in addition to presenting live broadcasts from Cisco Live events, Cisco Live Virtual gives you access to other content you may have missed and the ability to connect with like-minded peers who share your interests. You can view session PDFs and webcasts recorded at various Cisco Live events and stay plugged into your network of contacts all year long, so you can share your expertise and insight with the industry’s most engaged and informed IT community.

Get ready for the Ragan Communications Social Media Summit hosted at Cisco HQ in San Jose, CA. Over the next 3 days, we’ll be hearing about the latest trends, techniques and best practices for both internal and external communications via social media. We’ll keep the Cisco Social Media blog updated throughout the summit with recaps of each day’s presentations, and hopefully some video interviews with some of the speakers. Follow @CiscoSocial or search the hashtag #RaganCisco to hear updates throughout the summit.

Did you know there’s a correlation between a country’s coffee consumption and its appetite for technology? Here’s a follow-up to an earlier blog I posted on my Top 5 predictions for 2011 which range from network economics to books and eReaders to coffee drinking.

Many of you shared some great insights and I’m eager to hear more. What trends do you see coming in your crystal ball?

I spent yesterday at the Las Vegas Convention Center checking out all of the coolest products at CES 2011. The booths and displays were extraordinary– it was a truly unique experience to spend time with the hottest consumer electronics companies all together. Here is a brief look at the goings-on at the convention center:

We have much more content to come, including our TOP 5 product picks at CES 2011, so stay tuned!

Local governments are now eagerly discussing how to utilize information and communications technology (ICT) investment to advance their economic development plans. Topic awareness has increased, and yet total comprehension and plan execution is still a work in progress. Regardless, we’ve seen notable progress.

Back in 1997 I managed the public sector account teams for US West in the state of Arizona. It was my responsibility to understand and support the ICT needs and wants of our local government, education and public safety customers.

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